Los Angeles car poolers have accused owners of hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius of driving too slowly in order to maximise fuel efficiency, and of clogging ‘diamond lanes’ that were once clear, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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Hybrid motorists even have a term for the ill will: “Prius backlash”, the paper noted.
“There’s a mentality out there that we’re a bunch of liberal hippies or we’re trying to make some statement on the environment,” Travis Ruff, a real estate agent from Newbury Park who drives a Toyota Prius, told the LA Times, adding: “People are a lot less friendly than when I drove a Mercedes.”
The paper said highway authority Caltrans, which has issued carpool-lane stickers for about 50,000 hybrid cars, plans to study the effect of hybrids on carpool lanes, starting with certain busy freeways (motorways).
“There’s not enough excess capacity to absorb the hybrids,” James Moore, director of University of Sothern California’s transportation engineering programme, told the paper. “I think the foreseeable outcome here is that the congestion advantage we traditionally attribute to [carpool] lanes will disappear.”
The report said a debate over carpool-lane congestion also is occurring in the state of Virginia, which like California allows solo hybrid drivers to use the lanes. Last month, the Virginia Legislature placed curbs on hybrid drivers using the lanes in peak hours, requiring three or more people per vehicle, with a few exceptions.
The Los Angeles Times said the California Legislature approved the hybrids in carpool lanes as a way of encouraging the use of the low-emission, high-fuel-economy vehicles. The law grants carpool-lane access to hybrids that get at least 45 mpg. So far, only the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic and Honda Insight qualify.
From the beginning, the law has prompted complaints from carpoolers, the paper said, and, in recent months the criticism has grown louder as carpoolers accuse hybrid drivers of clogging the lanes, also known as high-occupancy vehicle lanes.
Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, who proposed the hybrid carpool-lane bill, told the paper most hybrid users tell her they love the privilege. Still, she acknowledged that on some freeways, the time saved during rush hour has been a question — something the state study will seek to sort out, the Los Angeles Times added.
